


A Leap of Faith

by aegistheia



Series: Winged AU [1]
Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen, I am apparently utterly unable to keep crackfics cracky, TOKIO cameos happened only because Nagase insisted on a mention of his own disasters, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:52:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aegistheia/pseuds/aegistheia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why does nobody believe Jun when he tells them that he can’t fly?</p><blockquote>
  <p>“What do you mean, you can’t fly?”</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	A Leap of Faith

**Author's Note:**

> **Also Archived On:** [Livejournal](http://aegiscrypt.livejournal.com/5689.html); [Dreamwidth](http://aegiscrypt.dreamwidth.org/5802.html).

“ _What do you mean_ , you can’t fly?”

Jun frowns at Aiba, feeling his headache ramp up a notch. For some reason Aiba’s taken to punctuating today’s conversations with stretches of badly pronounced English. “What do you mean, what do I mean?”

At Aiba’s side, Nino actually risks looking up from his game to give him a stare. “Jun-kun, you have perfectly functional wings.”

“Yes, and perfectly delicate wings. As you would know, Ninomiya.”

Nino’s wings beat once as if in acknowledgement, then stills. “That doesn’t have much to do with your ability to fly.”

Jun deigns this with a cocked eyebrow and silence.

Nino sighs, though it is mostly likely because he has just lost his battle with the boss if the game music is of any indication, and turns off his console. “Look, Jun-kun.” He moves to perch on the arm of the couch; his wings narrowly miss clipping Aiba upside the head and Aiba mimes biting a mouthful. “Some people have wings but can’t fly.”

“ _Like a dildo_!” Aiba bursts.

“ _Like a dodo_ ,” Sho corrects with a wince.

“ _Like Nishikido_ ,” Nino continues ruthlessly. “And some people have wings but won’t fly. _Like Sakurai the Chicken_.”

“Hey,” says Sho.

“And some people have wings and can fly.” Nino eyes Jun critically. “You’re in the last category, Jun-kun. I’ll bet my lunch on it.”

“Oi, you bet today’s lunch with me yesterday,” Aiba objects.

“I won the bet, so I’ll be having your lunch instead.”

“You so did not win!” Aiba dives for the newspapers on Sho’s lap. “...Okay, maybe you did.”

“Do I want to know what your bet was about?” Sho says morbidly.

Aiba flares his wings wide with almost insulting dismissiveness, flecks of down drifting in his wake. “It wasn’t anything traumatic, Sho-chan. I just said that there’d be at least one bird-girl with an F-cup displayed on the front page of entertainment news and Nino disagreed.”

“Unlike you, the rest of Japan does not have an obsession with huge breasts,” Nino says coolly.

“Could have fooled me,” Ohno remarks.

“You’re awake!” Aiba cheers.

“You’re not the rest of Japan,” Nino replies, with quite some fondness for somebody in scorn of another perspective. “But I’ll share half of Aiba-san’s lunch with Oh-chan anyway. We can eat it after we finish the shoots. Is it chicken _karaage_ again?”

“It is, lucky bastard, and you’re not getting it without me stealing a few bites—”

“Speaking of which. I’m not the one with a chicken’s wings, Nino,” Sho says, clearly still miffed. “That’s Nishikido-kun.”

“Then you wanted him to call you Sho the Female Sparrow instead?” Aiba inquires.

“I wanted him to call me without superfluous titles!”

“All right, Female Sparrow-chan,” Ohno says faithfully.

 _This band_ , Jun thinks, and fails to suppress a smile despite himself.

 

\-----

 

Jun’s thoughts are not nearly so kind later that night, when Nino lassos him into a random, unoccupied dressing room after filming for Utaban wraps up. More correctly, after finishing the two magazine shoots in a studio in Aoyama, an interview on the car ride to a drama audition, three run-throughs and two scenes in the audition proper, dance practice back in Shibuya after a short nap on the ride over, and, finally, two hours of Utaban.

“I’m going home,” he says dangerously, yanking his wrist out of Nino’s grasp.

Nino puts his hands up before he turns to head for the door. Jun just _knows_ that Nino had done it in full knowledge of Jun’s inability to ignore those kinds of gestures when made with genuine sincerity. “I know, I know. But we haven’t had a chance to talk all day.”

“We’ve only been together for the sum total of ten hours.”

“Not alone.” Nino frowns. “Jun-kun, we thought you’d be excited to be finally able to even try to take to the air.”

“I’m not like I was when I was young. Younger.”

“No.” Nino lets him breathe, which Jun is thankful for, until he continues, “your wings are developed now, for one. Big enough now.”

Gods, he’s way too tired for this. “My wings are nowhere near strong enough to support me right now.” Jun takes a deep inhale for patience. “Just, can we let this go, please?”

“That’s bullshit, Jun-kun,” Nino says, not unkindly. “Come on, let’s sneak out later next month and check out the rooftops at night, okay?”

By later next month, he means when they’ll be in Australia, completely whacked up on jetlag and adrenaline. By rooftops, he means the hotel rooftop in which they’re housed. By sneak out, he means foregoing the perfectly acceptable hotel bed for the night. If Nino was anybody else, Jun’d have probably considered decking him for the suggestion, or for the mere belief that Jun would actually give the offer serious weight.

Times like these, he rather wishes that Nino hadn’t known him for so long. Then again, it’s like wishing that Aiba would hesitate to do things that suggest that he might be completely out of his mind. And Nino’s nothing if not strategic.

As such, he only closes his eyes. “Just one night, and I don’t care what nefarious plans you have scheduled for me, I’m going to sleep by one,” he warns.

Nino kisses his cheek in reply and lets him return home in peace.

 

\-----

 

Sho has taken to reading copious amounts of newspapers ever since negotiations for his upcoming newscaster position had concluded with a tentative affirmation. Jun hadn’t thought that it was possible to subscribe to nearly every first- and second-tier economic periodical in Japan and read through them all, but Sho seems to be dead set on proving that assumption wrong.

“How many more do you have to go through for this month?” he asks, when Sho doesn’t look so immersed in the content of his current journal that he wouldn’t hear anything short of an earthquake warning.

“Six,” Sho murmurs, hand fishing blindly for his pen. Once found, he proceeds to jot down a nearly incomprehensible chain of characters. Jun is so strongly reminded of Sho’s university days that he almost checks the calendar for the current year. “And I’m just skimming them; I don’t want to actually die of exhaustion. Still feels like I’ve still got to fly over a mountain, though.”

Jun can’t help but laugh. Sho flashes him a conspiratorial grin as he flips the pages. “Surely it’s not that hard! You’ve read academic journals before, and those are much more confusing.”

“Ah, but it takes a lot more effort to sustain than anything, which this is. My wings aren’t built to fly for long distances, yeah?” Sho twitches his wings to punctuate.

Judging by that language... “So you _have_ flown before?” Jun says casually, “Outside of professional duties?”

Sho grunts absent-mindedly. “Once or twice.”

Jun feels his eyebrows shoot for his hairline. “Really? How was it?”

Sho shudders. “I’m never doing it again.”

“Really. No offence, Sakurai-kun, but I wouldn’t have pinned you as someone who would willingly learn to fly.”

Sho chuckles, closing his journal and stacking it on the frankly enormous pile to his left. “No, no, you’re right! I figured, I can’t fail unless I try, but then I can’t succeed either if I don’t try. And, well, you know me with challenges! I didn’t fail, mind, but I also came to the conclusion that I really, really didn’t want to be nauseous all day again. So. Yeah.”

Jun nods, then says slowly, “But what if you’d failed?”

Sho shrugs, reaching for another periodical. “I’d have tried again until I succeeded, then swore to never fly again.” He smirks, slightly wry, slightly too endearing for Jun to resist leaning towards him. To hear him better, of course. “Given how you all like to put me up in high places in concerts, the least I should do for myself is to make sure I have a second safety net, you?”

“But what if you failed, Sakurai-kun? What if you couldn’t fly?”

Sho pauses, and gives Jun a long look. At length, he shrugs again. “Then I’ll invest in discreet parachutes. I’ll eventually be fine with it. I’m not my wings.”

Sometimes Jun is truly envious of Sho’s surety of his place in the world, the surety that gives him stability in the face of failure. “I suppose.”

Sho turns back to open his new magazine and scribble on his notepad. “It sounds simple, and it is, once you get to that point. But until then it’s really not, isn’t it?” He tears out the sheet and hands it to Jun. “Here.”

Jun stares at the crude map. “What is this?”

“It’s the arena I used for practice runs. It has fairly good facilities, and offers discreet service.” Sho sits back and watches him with familiar quiet eyes, the same eyes that had guided him through hair-tearing math problems and sent him to school day in and day out during their early years. The same eyes that had said, over and over again: _don’t stop now. Not yet._ “Just for your reference.”

Jun thins his lips. “Thanks,” he says anyway, taking extra care to fold the sheet of paper and slide it into his wallet.

“Anytime. And... Matsumoto-kun?” Sho smiles, awkward and gentle. “We just want you to be happy. That’s all.”

Not quite sure how to answer, Jun can only nod before Ohno half-tripping through the greenroom door breaks their conversational thread for good.

 

\-----

 

“You know,” Nino remarks, midway through throwing open his hotel room’s extra comforter onto the floor of the roof, “your retort was kind of pointless.”

Head already spinning with exhaustion and the unexpected dampness of the Australian air, it takes Jun a few seconds to even place what he was referring to. “What— oh.”

“Of all excuses against flight, you shouldn’t be using wing delicacy. Not on me.”

“I know.” Jun looks down at his own comforter, hoping that Nino can hear the apology in his words. “It’s not an excuse.”

“You’re right. It’s not an excuse; it’s a reason,” Nino allows. “It’s a pretty shitty reason.”

It’s just about common knowledge that almost all insect wings are flight-ready within hours after their final moult. Jun’s wings are now more than a few months old – he can actually _feel_ their resilience – and he’s irrationally afraid.

Okay, maybe not completely irrationally afraid. With the workload upon which they’ve taken, he hadn’t had any time to even think about going to a flying arena for practice, let alone look for one with enough privacy. To fly without pointers is not impossible, but it’s borderline suicide for anybody to do so.

So... he’s still afraid.

When he looks up, Nino’s not quite looking at him, wings angled obliquely against his back and shifting in some internal harmony with the faint breeze. “So?”

Jun licks his lips. “I’ve already snuck up here with you, and I’m checking out the rooftop just fine from where I am.”

“Jun-kun,” Nino says with remarkable patience, “we’re up here already, aren’t we? Nobody’s going to be looking at the roof at an hour like this. Come on, at least let them taste the night wind at this kind of altitude?”

He launches straight up into the air, and Jun’s breath catches despite himself; nobody takes off quite like Nino. Then again, barely anybody _has_ wings like Nino’s. “What does it feel like tonight?” he calls.

“Kind of like keeping afloat in a whirlpool in the deep end of the pool.” Nino flips through a lazy figure-eight. “‘Course, if you ask Oh-chan, he’ll tell you differently.”

Apparently the air feels different depending on the type of wings and the altitude. Jun’s never sure whether the purported differences are more due to poetic extrapolations than factual basis, but then all he’s running his scepticism on is healthy suspicion and not any kind of anatomical knowledge, so. “Maybe it’s because he feels and expresses things differently.”

“Maybe. We can still fly just fine, though, so I don’t think it matters much.”

Jun sighs. “Nino.”

Nino peers at him unrepentantly. He is startlingly exquisite in the moonlight, wings gilded with silver and features tipped with white, and hovering like time has stopped at his behest. “Jun-kun, if I can fly, so can you, and you know it.”

Jun closes his eyes for a moment. “I know.” His wings are nearly trembling with the instinctive desire to join Nino. He knows they can take him to look Nino in the eye, face-to-face in midair, to loop around him and revel in the peaceful night. Knowing isn’t quite the same as experiencing, though. Which, he supposes, had been Sho’s point all along.

He watches Nino circle him once more, and reaches out to catch Nino by the forearms when Nino dips. Nino lets Jun swing him back onto the roof, then shrugs out of his grasp. “You should at least give it a try before you can’t anymore.” Nino stretches his arms, arches his shoulder blades; a flicker crosses his face before he’s composed once more. “You know we wouldn’t be able to soon.”

“I’ve read the books,” Jun admits. And the statistics, the theories, the physics. The flight expectancy timeline.

“It’s not like you,” Nino says quietly, “to just let things go like this.”

Sho’s slip of paper burns in his pocket, even through seven layers of leather and fabric. “It’s...” _...Not just me who will suffer if I injure myself_. “...one twenty in the morning.”

Nino smiles, a warm curve that crinkles the corners of his eyes. “I knew I could rely on you to keep time.”

It is only then that Jun realizes that Nino had already taken his watch off.

 

\-----

 

For a moment, Jun’s not sure what had woken him. Wavering light the distinctive colour of gold-hued rose has swathed the roof in broad streaks, but it isn’t nearly intense enough yet to have served as the alarm. And Nino—

Nino is awkwardly slumped on his side and front, intricately veined gossamer still and graceful in the air. He is also asleep, so it must have been the third figure, who is in the middle of climbing through the roof door.

“Masaki,” Jun croaks. “What are you doing?”

The man waves distractedly, attention on the door as he closes it as quietly as he can. Then Aiba turns, and every sleep-saturated greeting he’d prepared very clearly disappears in favour of a gape.

“What’s wrong?” Instantly awake, Jun turns quickly, but all that’s behind him is the railing, a four-storey drop, and the blanching sky.

“Jun-kun,” Aiba breathes reverently, “your wings are _beautiful_.”

Oh. Oh, _fuck_. He’d forgotten to re-spray the scale cover before sneaking up the roof with Nino, and he’d forgotten to bring the bottle up as well. Even the best scale-spray lasts a day at most, and the black that he favours is particularly lacking in lasting power.

As it is amply demonstrating now, in the morning dew.

His wings are trying to mantle themselves before he’s even thought about it. “Don’t tell,” he demands, or tries to, because it comes out more like a plea. “Don’t tell anybody about them.”

“Tell?” Aiba exclaims. It’s strictly incredible how excited he can get when given sufficient motivation, even at the crack of dawn. “Why would I tell when everybody can just see with their own eyes? Your scales aren’t pigmented, are they? The colours play off differently! What’s the word— iridescence. They’re iridescent. They’re iridescent!”

“So you finally used Sho-kun’s dictionary? Congratulations. Please go away now.” Nino doesn’t even bother opening his eyes as he hauls his blanket up higher and buries into his pillow, by all appearances falling straight back to sleep.

Aiba isn’t having any of it. “Come on, Nino,” he wheedles hoarsely as he sinks to his side, black-flecked white wings spreading wide and draping Nino completely in their shadow. “We’re supposed to be woken up in about twenty minutes for the Ultra Strong Game briefing. In our rooms.”

“Tell them to set up camp here.”

Aiba’s smile is small but brilliant, as brilliant as the permanent halo his remiges have blurred into the edges of his wings. It’s kind of remarkable how he doesn’t look predatory at all. “It’s going to be hard convincing manager-san that this is our room. Besides, I can’t manoeuvre the beds out the door alone.”

“Why do you make such convincing arguments when you’re half-asleep,” Nino groans, cracking one eye open. “Help carry the blankets.”

Aiba wordlessly reaches for the comforter Jun had already folded up, but Jun shakes his head minutely, chin tilting at Nino. He can manage just fine.

Aiba considers this, then tears the blanket straight off of Nino with a gleeful little cackle. “Rise and shine! I had to get up earlier than you to sneak up here, Nino-chan, so you don’t get to complain.”

Nino turns to squint a tousled glare at him, wings shivering in the air, before straightening with a huff and a wince. Aiba’s grin wavers, gentles. “Let’s go, ninja force,” Nino mumbles miming Ultraman’s pose.

“Before that, we need to sweep the roof of Aiba’s sheddings,” Jun says grimly, eyeing the incriminating down.

There’s a pause. “In my defence,” Aiba says, “I told you to pick Sho-kun to wake you up instead of me.”

 

\-----

 

“That was close,” Aiba giggles, nearly bowling them all down in his haste to slip out from behind the door to the stairs. “Hurry, Nino, hurry!”

Nino glances down the hall blearily and drums on the door. Sho opens it a good half-minute later, wearing a rumpled jersey, boxers, and a spectacular bed-head. He squints at them, then gestures for Nino with a brusque beckon.

“Thanks, Sho-chan,” Nino yawns into Sho’s shoulder as Sho wraps heavy arms around him. Aiba swings the blanket over Sho’s shoulders and wings, pats Nino on the back, and lets Sho shut the door.

“I’m glad Sho-chan woke up again,” Aiba confesses as he fumbles for his card key to their room the next door down. “He texted back when I told him to get ready for Nino’s knock, but I think he fell asleep waiting. Getting you guys back down took longer than we’d expected...”

It’d taken more effort than they’d expected, too, even beyond the half-hearted brushing of Aiba’s down off the roof and top flight of stairs. Jun has no chance of going back to sleep now from the close calls they’d had with the hotel staff; there is a surprising number of them already rolling into rooms for freshening. “I am so glad we’re not in Japan,” he says fervently.

“Well, yeah. That’s why we though pulling you up on our trip abroad was the best way to go.”

...Wait a moment. “‘We’?”

Aiba apparently wants to die today. “Nino volunteered, but I’d have taken you up too if I didn’t have to groom every morning! I already did a preliminary brushing before I left for you, can you believe it? Do you think owl wings shed more than the other types? I think I need another groom...”

Jun makes sure to close the door properly before seizing Aiba by the arm and spinning him around. “Aiba Masaki,” he growls.

Aiba looks surprised, but Jun suspects it’s more about the sudden turn he’d made than anything Jun had said. “We’re not conspiring against you, Jun-chan.” His eyes are soft. “Cross my heart. And I really did groom once already.”

 _We just want you to be happy_. “What if I tell you that I just don’t want to fly?”

Aiba cocks his head and his hip, fair hair falling into his eyes. “Is that what you honestly want? Because if it is, we’ll stop encouraging you. We will. But, Jun-chan,” he adds, when Jun opens his mouth, “you have to really mean it. Because we all really, really want you to find out what it feels like to fly first before you decide against it.”

Silence stretches out between them like an unravelling flag. Aiba’s eyes are gravity wells in the warm dark.

“I suppose I don’t mind being convinced otherwise,” Jun relents grudgingly. A truce flag, then. “But just because you’re all wanting me to fly doesn’t mean I actually will or can, okay? We have a lot on our plates already.”

“We can’t make you do anything, Jun-chan,” Aiba says cheerfully.

 _Or so you think_ , Jun thinks uncharitably. “I can’t believe you all schemed for this so long ago... Speaking of which, what’s up with your English lately? How did you even get _dildo_ and _dodo_ mixed up anyway? The Japanese word for the bird is identical to the English one. And you messed up _pompadour_ just last week for _pineapple_ , how did that even happen? You like Nino’s tsukkomi that much?”

“What? ...Ah.” Aiba’s smile turns quite unexpectedly crooked. “Nino loves to fly, you know. He doesn’t really like to talk about it much, though.”

Jun’s throat closes up. He’d... noticed. For all that Ohno and Nino like to wheel around each other given the proper z-space, they spend surprisingly little time on the topic, and it’s telling. They all know that the price that everyone with damselfly wings must pay for their superior flight agility is a noticeably shorter flight expectancy.

“But, see,” Aiba is saying. Jun drags himself out of his thoughts. “Nino’s attitude has always been doing things more than worrying about them, right. It simplifies everything. To just do it.”

“Sounds like Nino,” Jun says carefully. His watch is a distinct weight on his wrist.

“And he knows we’re behind him every step of the way.” Aiba smiles, and when their manager raps on the door a moment later, calls, “We’re up! Jun’s helping me groom!”

 

\-----

 

Ohno almost misses breakfast, having apparently fallen back asleep shortly after he’d been woken up by his morning call. He shows up ten minutes before they have to go, and makes a beeline for Nino instead of the food.

“Oh-chan, grab the sausages.” Nino puts his glass down just before Ohno drapes himself onto Nino’s shoulders. “You’ll like them.”

“Nino flew last night, didn’t he?” Ohno says into Nino’s neck. “I wish I was there to see.”

“Satoshi,” Sho hisses, “please be circumspect.” Jun glances down the breakfast hall, but most of their staff are either out of earshot or visibly not paying them any attention. Aiba pats Sho on the wing-joint comfortingly.

Nino shrugs Ohno off. “You’ve seen me fly plenty of times. Next time you’re taking him up.”

“Nino’s so cruel,” Ohno whines, slipping off the rest of the way to embark upon a proper search for sausages, and that’s the last they speak of their little adventure up on the roof for the rest of the trip.

It only serves to make Jun more uneasy. In hindsight, that’s probably why his performance had been so bad; he’d apologize to his team, but he doesn’t know what to say that won’t sound juvenile at best.

_You have to really mean it..._

But Aiba’s right, of course. The final step, no matter what they do, is his and his alone.

 

\-----

 

“Wow, it’s actually empty!” Yamaguchi Tatsuya exclaims as he pushes open the doors leading to the second storey of the parking lot. “I’d have thought there’d be at least a few enterprising Juniors sneaking out to try and break their necks.”

The parking lot is indeed devoid of people, for once; Jun had taken extra care to blackmail everybody into keeping the lot clear weeks ahead, given how popular it is for impromptu flight practices. He’s maybe regretting the decision now; its emptiness is daunting. What Jun had to say in reply, though, is completely lost the moment his wings move.

The bite of the new spring wind is unexpectedly sharp, but the cold brings a sense of _belonging_ that hits hard enough to make him reel. The air curls around his wings like a welcome home, like the feeling his wings can still remember in the drift of the Australian night breeze. Now that he thinks about it, that had probably been the real reason behind why they’d planned for him to spend the night on the roof instead of sneaking back into their rooms. Those crafty twits!

“I’m not exactly a flier anymore,” Gussan is saying, words dropping like stones between them as they make their way across the lot, “but at least I’ll be strong enough to make sure you won’t crash-land too hard.”

Jun gives him a watery smile. “Thanks for the encouragement, Gussan.”

Gussan grins and claps a heavy hand on his shoulder. “If I was really concerned I’d have recommended you find somebody who can actually fly well to spot you. You’ll be fine; a couple of months of practice is more than sufficient for somebody like you.”

“Gliding with a harness is much different from gliding solo, though,” Jun says, staring down at the pavement. At least Toma had been kind – or tactful – enough to not laugh when he’d spotted Jun’s first few harnessed glides. Even without a fear of heights, it’s _terrifying_.

Gussan just smiles. “Just remember the basics I showed you in the arena. At least I know you won’t be like Tomoya.”

Jun blinks. Should he ask... but his piqued curiosity has already made his decision for him. “What happened to Nagase-kun?”

“I ended up hauling him to emergency for a dislocated shoulder and a mild concussion,” Gussan says with perfect nonchalance as he hops onto the concrete barrier. He seems completely unaffected by Jun’s wild look. “But that’d been because he hadn’t listened to Mabo or me. _And_ he managed to sustain himself for twenty-five seconds on wingbeats on his second try anyway, so everybody’s path to flight is different! Watch me one more time, and aim for where I land, okay?”

Jun fights the urge to swallow. “Okay.”

“Here I go!” Gussan pushes off the edge. Jun leans over the barrier and watches Gussan spiral down in a loose corkscrew, his double bee’s wings glistening as they taunt gravity.

_Jun-kun, if I can fly, so can you..._

And Gussan’s wings are smaller than Nino’s, and even weaker than Jun’s. There’s no logical reason why he can’t actually succeed without a safety net. There’s no—

“Whenever you’re ready!” Gussan bellows, making Jun start. Gussan waves at him cheerily, then runs for— a nearby pickup truck. Ah, he’s probably looking for some height in case of an emergency flight.

_Just do it..._

Jun grits his teeth, clambers onto the concrete edge, and doesn’t give himself the time to second-guess. One breath, one last flashed recollection of basics, and he leaps.

The winds wrap themselves around him in an instant cocoon of buffeting support. His wings strain against the air; there’s more unpredictable turbulence to balance against than in the mechanically generated simulations in the arena, but it’s nothing he can’t handle. It’s colder, too, as the warmth is stripped from his skin, but his wings can’t feel it. All they can feel is the call of the sky as they splay wide and fight against gravity’s pull, as they thrill with the winds dancing on their scaled surfaces and guide him through the vast mysteries of z-space.

He whoops when his glide drops him past the first storey, feeling his glee stretch his grin into ridiculous dimensions. Gussan catches him at his landing point with steady hands and an equally huge smile, and thumps him hard on the back. “That was beautiful, Jun-kun! Good stability. You trained well! Up for another go?”

“Yeah,” Jun manages, exhilaration almost making his voice crack. Gussan laughs aloud and shoves him towards the stairs.

Heart hammering in his throat, Jun tries not to let his enthusiasm bowl him over. His wings actually lift him up the last three steps with one great beat.

When he looks down again from his perch, Ohno is beside Gussan, a shielding hand’s shadow hiding his eyes, but there’s no hiding the direction in which he’s looking.

Later, Jun will deny that the little spark in his chest was what had firmed his resolve to try wingbeats, but this is now, and so he shoves off in the full face of Ohno’s small smile to seize the air with his wings.

And it’s _glorious_.

Admittedly, there’s this moment when he almost stalls on the downbeat; luckily he has enough altitude to regain his stability and slip into a more controlled glide that makes him reconsider wanting to alight. When he does land he almost sprawls onto his face as his knees give out, but then Ohno is under his arm and around his waist, the huge stretch of his royal albatross wings mantling around Jun, tucking him in close and warm.

“I thought I’d get to see Nino fly today,” he says, “with Aiba-chan.”

“Aiba— is a long, long way from flying properly,” Jun replies, still a little short of breath. “He still has at least a year’s worth of fledging left to go.”

“Mmh. That’s probably why Nino insisted on going with him, I guess. Sore?”

“No.” A twinge runs down his back. “Not yet,” Jun amends.

“And we’re done for the day,” Gussan announces. He’s beaming. “One complete wingbeat on your first free-fly without crashing! That’s excellent progress. We’ll try again two weeks from now, okay?”

Another twinge, and Jun sighs, though he does that through a wide smile of his own. “Two weeks, yeah. Thank you very much, Gussan.”

“Anytime. I have to go now, my village is waiting. Ohno-kun.” Gussan ruffles Ohno’s hair before turning away. They both watch him make his way back silently.

Finally, Jun steps out from within the crook of Ohno’s arm. “So where is Nino and Aiba flying now?”

Ohno chews on his bottom lip, puffing his cheeks out in thought. “They’re supposed to be in the parking lot on west end, the one with the spiral staircase that faces a side street?”

Jun squints at him suspiciously. “This is the northeast parking lot, Leader.”

“Really?” Ohno looks blank for a moment. “Ah, that’s why they’re not here.”

...It is quite likely that Ohno is absolutely serious. Jun sighs. “Our break is almost up anyway. Let’s go look for them together.”

 

\-----

 

“...Can’t wait until I finish fledging,” Aiba is saying as they open the door to the west parking lot. “I mean, I’m excited for my flight feathers! But I always leave behind this mess...”

“I’d rather you learn the basics of flight with your baby feathers so that I can control your fall,” Nino says, the dryness somehow amplifying along with the echoes. “The moment you grow your primaries in, I won’t be able to spot you anymore.”

“I’ll still fly at low altitudes!”

“And not learn how to fly properly?” Nino’s shudder is almost audible. “That’s a nightmare I don’t think anybody’s ready to contemplate. You’d better find Matsuoka-san and wheedle some lessons out of him instead.”

Jun can practically hear Aiba brighten. “Yeah! He taught Leader how to fly, didn’t he?”

“He did,” Ohno confirms as they round the corner into eyeshot.

“Leader!”

“Jun-kun,” Nino greets, takes one glance at Jun, and grins.

Aiba’s eyes track all over Jun. “I’m glad,” is all he says, though the quiet joy underlining his words warms Jun with a shiver.

“It’s that obvious?” Jun says, surprised, then curses himself. He’d meant to make a snide comment about Aiba leaving a mess, but instead this slips out...

Aiba gives him a heavy look, drinking in his undoubtedly windswept look

Nino takes mercy on him. “You’re bouncing on the balls of your feet, you’re more mussed than the wind could do to anybody land-bound, and you’re flushed. And your wings are shivering. We might not be the brightest, but we do know you, Jun-kun. There’s not much that will get you so excited.”

“Jun-kun was very beautiful when he was gliding,” Ohno says proudly. “Wait until he can sustain himself properly!”

Jun arches an eyebrow. “You mean, like never? I can’t possibly sustain myself with insect wings.”

Ohno shrugs. “No harm to try.”

“Why are you here, Oh-chan?” Nino crosses his arms. “Are they calling for us already?”

“Manager-san said to bring you back in five minutes. So I came looking.”

Aiba whips around to stare at Nino, down flurrying around him like a Hokkaido blizzard. “I thought you told Oh-chan we were in the northeast parking lot!”

Nino arches an eyebrow in perfect tandem with Jun. “I didn’t tell Leader anything about parking lots,” he replies with a shake of his head. “I just said that I was going flying with you, and that he should text us when the stylists arrive.”

“Oh.” Ohno looks blank again. Jun can only stare. “I was supposed to text?”

Nino sighs explosively. “Don’t even bother apologizing, Oh-chan. Did you tell Sho to get me a double-shot Americano with milk?”

“Plus Aiba-chan a café latte with a sugar, and Jun-kun a vanilla bean soy latte with two sugars,” Ohno confirms.

“It’s a celebration!” Aiba cheers.

“For my first unaided flight?” Jun says mock-crossly.

“For making your decision,” Ohno corrects gently.

“Didn’t really decide on my own,” Jun demurs, leaning into his side. If any of them notices him blushing, they give no indication of having noticed. For that, he is grateful too.

 

\-----

 

Aiba nearly drops his bag when Jun walks into the dressing room the next week. “Oh, Jun-kun!” he wails.

Jun tries not to hunch defensively into himself. “Masaki,” he says, “good morning.”

“It’s a beautiful morning!” Aiba’s eyes are pinned to his wings. Jun would swat him if he weren’t so conscious of himself and of the stillness that had settled over the room. He settles for taking a quick, sweeping glance behind his sunglasses, and then ducking to put away his coat. He takes a bracing breath, and turns around.

Sho, like Aiba, is staring. Ohno isn’t nearly as ostentatious with his surprise, but his expression is as focused as it’s ever been before eight in the morning. Inexplicably, Nino isn’t looking at his wings at all. He’s just slouching at the counter, keeping his eyes on Jun’s face and his smile almost hidden from sight.

“Did your manager say anything?” Aiba demands, wings practically shivering. “Oh, this is so exciting!”

“No, but he’s been really cheerful all morning, so...”

“Jun-kun, we’ll be ready for you in five minutes,” Shizuru-san says, poking her head into their room. Her eyes widen briefly, but she just gives them a quick grin before ducking back out. In that moment, Jun loves her more than he ever has in the history of their acquaintance.

Much more than he loves Aiba, in any case, who’s jumped to his feet and is circling Jun like he’s on display at the zoo. “Remember when we thought your wings were black?” Aiba’s smile is nostalgic. “They looked _so_ dark underneath your skin.”

“You should have known what colour the scales were,” Jun grumbles, “it’s not like the shape of my wings aren’t already distinctive enough.”

“Yeah,” Aiba sighs, happily enough that Jun is obligated to topple him over the back of the sofa with a shove. Aiba falls over obligingly, flipping over onto his back and kicking his legs like a child. “Oops, sorry, Leader! Yeah, we could guess. But there’s nothing quite like seeing proper Madagascar sunset moth wings in person! In sunlight!”

Sho leans down and picks a scale up. “You have strong wings, don’t you? They shed quite a bit.”

Jun flushes. “Sorry.”

“Good gods, man, that wasn’t a suggestion for you to apologize. They’re really nice, Jun-kun.” Sho rubs the naked scale between his fingers. “They’re different from other iridescent wings.”

“They look like they don’t know what colour they want to be.” Jun frowns at nothing in particular. “I wish they would.”

“Your wings don’t define you, Jun-kun,” Sho says gently, “and even if you think they do, you can keep yourself airborne now, can’t you?”

“Pretty,” Ohno murmurs, leaning over the back of the sofa, fingertips almost but not quite touching the scales on his wings themselves. “I like them like this much more than when they’re covered by your scale-spray.”

Jun flushes again. At this rate he might have to resign himself into blushing all day. “I’ll look into transparent sprays,” he mutters, “or, well, Nino?”

“I can recommend you some,” Nino confirms, waving one wing idly. “Yamashita’s tested a lot of brands, too, so he could probably give you some from beneath his mountain of unused samples.”

Jun is still laughing, startled by the pun, when his manager walks in. His broad grin hasn’t faded at all. “Before you go, Matsumoto-kun, this is for you.” He hands Jun a package. A—

“Are those scripts?” Sho eyes the bundle keenly.

“Scripts?” Aiba echos, struggling back upright.

Jun’s manager practically glows. Well, at least now Jun knows he’s not smiling just because he’s not spraying his wings anymore. The rest of his stupid group can use him as an exemplar, really. “Yes, they’re scripts.”

“So Jun-kun landed a role?”

“I landed a leading role,” Jun says, dazed, flipping through the books.

“For _Hana Yori Dango_?” At Jun’s nod, Sho whoops. “That’s amazing! Who’re you playing?”

Nino peers over his shoulder. “ _Hana Yori Dango_ , huh— hey, check out Domyouji’s fancy flappers!”

“Just like Jun-kun’s!” Aiba screeches.

He definitely loves Aiba the least. “Have you even read the manga? Don’t you associate me with him. Wings don’t define us.” Jun cuffs Aiba on the shoulder for good measure before he leaves, but he’s unable to do anything but grin the entire way to makeup.

Not that his absence stops them from speculating at the top of their lungs. “Jun-kun’s going to experience such a leap in popularity when this airs—”

“Want to try something different today, Jun-kun?” Shizuru-san flips open the pans of eye shadows with quick, practiced movements, twirling a brush around her fingers with absent skill as Jun makes himself comfortable on the makeup chair. “It’s just a dress rehearsal, so it’ll be a great opportunity to see if we can bring out your eyes with your wings. I think the concert could use some new dramatics.” 

“—five thousand yen he won’t be coming down for the next decade if we play the cards right—”

 _This stupid band._ “Sure,” Jun says, to the comforting sound of his bandmates’ raucous cheer in the dressing room just beyond, “why not.”

 

 

 

  
_-fin-_   



End file.
